


Chances Are

by 3byeol



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Danny Mahealani is a little scary, F/M, Harassment, M/M, Masturbation, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pack Feels, Papa Stilinski is a good dad, Prejudice, Scott McCall is a Good Friend, Sexism, Some angst, Stilinski feels, but no actual mpreg, but proofread, mentions of mpreg, prejudicial language, themes of homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-09 13:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3byeol/pseuds/3byeol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is a carrier - a human male who can get pregnant, and generally looked down upon by society at large. He has no problem with it, even if the rest of the world does. </p>
<p>When he and Derek start dating, Stiles plans to tell him about it. Really, he does, just... on his own terms. (Eventually.) So when the pack finds out before he's ready? Everything starts blowing up in his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt at the Teen Wolf Kink Meme on LJ ([here](http://tnw-kinkmeme.livejournal.com/2665.html?thread=111977#t111977)).
> 
> See end notes for more details on story content/tags.

Things first started going weird when Stiles was ten.

 

His mom took him to the doctor for his annual physical. The nurses gave Stiles a bunch of tests – he could remember shots, getting his blood drawn, and then the doctor mashing on his belly, but not much beyond that. This was way before he was on medication for his ADD, and it was hardly like he was paying attention; the free candy was the only part of doctor’s visits he normally cared about. He did get a roll of sweeties at the end, and they gave his mom a referral to take him back to a specialty clinic the following day. When they got back to the car, she looked at the slip like she didn’t really know what to do with it. Stiles didn’t care. He wasn’t a big fan of the doctor or anything, but, hey: bonus day off from school!

 

The specialty clinic was the hospital’s exact opposite. It was built out of boring, brown bricks, and everything was cramped and looked kind of old inside. The waiting room wallpaper was printed with big cabbage roses and there were posters _everywhere,_ even on the ceiling of the examination room. Stiles stared up at them while the nurse had him lay back on the tissue-covered exam table.

 

When the poking and prodding was done, Dr. Zimmerman told his mother that he was “ _afraid the tests were indicating_ ” that Stiles was “ _a hyper-fertile male._ ” Stiles had never heard that term before, but with the way Dr. Z said it, he understood at once that it was something bad. His mom tried to calmly explain things in a way he would understand. But she was wearing the same expression she had worn when telling Stiles what remission was, that the cancer was gone _now_ but maybe not forever. Needless to say, he wasn’t any less worried or confused until she finally hit on the magic words: “He means you’re a _carrier,_ honey.”

 

Everything suddenly clicked.

 

He was a _carrier._ That was a punch line to tons of playground jokes. The kind you got in trouble for, if a teacher heard you telling them. Stiles had even repeated some of them – not because he really understood them or thought they were all that funny, but talking about things you weren’t supposed to even know about yet was exciting.

 

"I'm one of those boys who can have babies?" Stiles blurted out. He pulled a face, yanking the tootsie-roll pop the nurse had given him out of his mouth so quickly that the candy jarred against his teeth.

 

His mom – and god, how he missed her – didn’t even try to spit out an answer to that one. She just laughed, and looked challengingly over at the Doctor as if to say, ‘Well, is he?’

 

Dr. Z explained that nothing would be one hundred percent sure until Stiles went through puberty in the next few years, but that all signs pointed to yes. They performed the tests at this age to “ _give those affected by the condition, and their families, time to prepare_ ” or whatever, which they were “ _strongly encouraged_ ” to do. What that preparation would even involve, exactly, he didn’t say. He just sent them home with a stack of pamphlets, all of which were way over Stiles’ head. They all had titles which talked about, like, _hormones_ and _management options_ and _support_. Inside, they had diagrams of body parts and organs with labels in tiny print. The covers showed photos of happy people having picnics, laughing while they held each other.

 

Stiles still had no idea what was going on, and he had no idea what to feel.

 

He played Nintendo for most of the afternoon, not thinking about much of anything, until his dad came home. Dinner that night was super weird. They had green beans and pork chops, which Stiles kept cutting into smaller and smaller cubes so he could push them into the pool of ketchup on his plate. (The ketchup was blood, and the pork chop bits were people who were getting eaten by the green bean sharks.) While the feeding frenzy got more and more violent, his mom and dad told him that being a carrier didn’t have to change anything and they would love him no matter what.

 

Scott’s mom gave Stiles a booklet from the hospital that explained what being a carrier was, in terms that a ten-year-old was more equipped to understand. She told him that she was always willing to answer his questions, if he had any he was too embarrassed to ask his parents, and she’d keep everything between the two of them. Stiles thanked her, and silently promised himself that he would never, ever take her up on her offer unless it was a matter of life and death. He read the booklet over, once, in a sort of mortified fascination; then he stuck it on his bookshelf and tried to forget he even had it. He was barely double-digits, for god’s sake. Telling dirty jokes to other fourth-graders was one thing, he didn’t really want to know the exact definition of ‘impregnation’ or see the awkward drawings. Talk about major second-hand embarrassment.

 

And of course, since nothing in Stiles’ life was ever straightforward, that wasn’t nearly the end of it.

 

For one thing, his parents forced him to participate in more discussions. They were super uncomfortable and Stiles whined every time they tried to sit him down, but his mom was hell-bent on having him understand everything there was to know about being a carrier. His dad was… well, he looked about as reluctant as Stiles felt, but determined to see them through nonetheless.

 

He didn’t realize it at the time, but his parents were actually pretty awesome about the whole thing. They never told him that he had to keep what he was a secret. In fact, they made it clear he could tell anybody he wanted to. But even at age ten, Stiles had heard the jokes and the laughter and he already knew people liked to make fun of carriers like him. His parents believed he needed to be properly informed first and foremost, so they confessed, as kindly and gently as they could, that he could probably only expect more – and worse – as he got older.

 

So, yeah. Not exactly a strong case for shouting his status out to the world. Talking to people about your body was embarrassing enough, even if you didn’t have people who would outright mock you for it.

 

The only person he did end up telling was Scott. Stiles kind of wanted someone to know about it who wasn’t just family, and anyway, this was back when he still couldn’t keep a secret from his best friend to save his life. At first, it was kind of obvious that Scott didn’t know what to think about it, either; but Melissa must have talked to him. The next day at school he told Stiles that they would be best friends forever. He wouldn’t make any jokes about it, or tell anyone, and he crossed his heart and hoped to die and _everything_. That was still pretty much a sacred vow in the fourth grade. So, yeah, Stiles had no worries there.

 

It was nice having Scott – and of course, Scott’s mom, and his own parents - on his side. They all told him that this didn’t have to change anything, that being a carrier wasn’t a bad thing, etcetera, etcetera.

 

But it was hard to believe them when he kept hearing differently.

 

*

 

Over the following years, things got both better and worse.

 

By the time he was thirteen, Stiles was pretty much done with puberty, and yeah. Definitely a carrier.

 

Puberty and just plain growing older kind of did a number on him, and he wasn’t even a super cool popular kid to begin with. His self-esteem wasn’t exactly the highest (he preferred the term ‘realistic’) and while he had always been pretty sarcastic and irreverent, he made a lot more jokes at his own expense.

 

His parents - and even Scott - got upset whenever he was self-deprecating, especially when he was deliberately trying to get them to laugh by doing it. It actually led to more than a few ongoing arguments with his mom and dad: they didn’t like the carrier jokes and cynical comments, but he couldn’t see what the big deal was. After all, _he_ was the damn carrier, here. If anyone had a right to make jokes, it was damn well Stiles.

 

That all changed in the eighth grade, though, when they studied genetics in science. They made Punnett squares, talked about different methods of inheritance, the whole nine yards. The textbook used hyper-fertility as an example of a sex-linked recessive trait, linked to the X-chromosome. In other words, Stiles learned that he had actually inherited his hyper-fertility from his mom. That… kind of made him feel like a total shitbag. All this time he had never really thought about where, exactly, he had gotten it from; but his mom would have known. How much had it hurt her, believing she had passed down a condition he hated about himself?

 

Yeah. Needless to say he shut the hell up after that. The worst part was that it… it wasn’t even difficult to do at that point. His mother had gotten sick again, her decline was sharp and brutal, and _fuck cancer forever_. Stiles would rather be a carrier a hundred lifetimes in a row than let her suffer cancer once. There were months where he felt like he would never be able to make a joke or laugh about anything ever again. After she died, well. Stiles felt a lot of things. And, he made a lot of decisions. Most of them were objectively pretty awful, to be honest, but there was something good that came out of it: Stiles decided that he wanted to accept his body, like his mom had wanted him to do.

 

It was easier said than done. _Way_ easier said than done. He was so used to covering his insecurities with jokes that it felt counter-intuitive, almost wrong. But he kept at it, trying to actively change the way he thought about himself. It was exhausting, but no more so than hating himself had been.

 

As part of his ‘project,’ Stiles read a lot about carriers on the internet. He read about protests, harassment, civil rights. A lot of the time it was depressing, or outright rage-inducing; but it was something he felt a personal responsibility to keep tabs on. Plus, reading other carriers’ stories about how they embraced their bodies ended up helping him way more than he initially expected. He also realized how lucky he was to have had his mom, and dad, and Scott in his life.

 

Yeah. It was hard. But on the bright side, it helped him adjust a lot more easily when Scott got bit and turned. Stiles knew what it was like to feel like your body had suddenly changed on you, that something was inside you now that wasn’t there before. Sure, being a carrier didn’t make you want to flip out when the moon was full and murder your best friend, but hey. They both had their… unique challenges.

 

Overall, things were okay. Definitely not what he had ever expected, or what other teenagers had to deal with, but… still okay.

 

*

 

_Oh god,_ Stiles thought, staring down at his own t-shirt while he wrung it between his hands. _Oh god. What am I doing here. How did I get here? Fuck, what are the choices I made in my life that this is a thing happening to me right now?_

 

It was early September – the first week of school, actually – and Stiles was the last person in the locker room, besides Danny Mahealani. No big deal, right? Just two dudes, getting naked together – okay, not _together_ together, but separately together. That wasn’t weird. He could totally just be all casual and ask Danny… things. He didn’t need to turn tail and flee, because fuck, when would he ever get another chance like this? What if Danny could _magically solve all of his problems?_ If Stiles didn’t at least _try_ to ask, then he would never know.

 

Okay. Yeah. He was terrified. The full out dizzy, heart-thumping, shaky-hands kind of business was all going on. He didn’t really want to be here, but it was like the universe was deeming it so. A bunch of less anxiety-inducing moments had been piling up ever since last year, kind of leading to this as a natural consequence. If Stiles were to try and write them all down on a timeline and point to _here, here’s where I started fucking everything up,_ he didn’t think he’d be able to do it.

 

It all started that horrifying night in the warehouse. No surprise there, because when was anything ever not Jackson’s fault, at least partially? Yeah. Exactly. See, he hadn’t known it at the time, but the thing with watching Lydia save Jackson from being a venomous reptilian through the _literal power of love_ was that it kind of heralded the end of Stiles' feelings for her.

 

Well, okay. They didn’t end instantaneously or anything. He was more than aware of his personal flaws; _not being able to let go_ was definitely one of them. He told himself over and over that he needed to get over Lydia; but surprisingly enough, just telling yourself to stop feeling a certain way… well, it didn’t really work, no matter how much you wanted it to. Life would probably be a lot less painful if it did work that way, but, hey! Human experience, whatever.

 

Anyway, that was the night where Stiles realized Lydia and Jackson loved each other. And that was saying something: Stiles was what you might consider a _Lydia et Jackson connoisseur._ He’d been hyper-aware of the two of them for years. He’d watched them kiss, hold hands, eye-fuck each other at the lunch table, fight, all of it. Never – not once – had he ever thought Jackson was worth Lydia’s time; not with the way he treated her and talked to her, and it wasn’t just the jealousy talking.

 

But when Lydia held up that key? There was no mistaking that. Jackson looked at her with wonder, with amazement, with everything Stiles had believed Lydia deserved from a partner. Including love.

 

It had been like a punch to his kidneys, on multiple levels.

 

In any case, he no longer thought of Lydia and Jackson as just a power couple. They made each other happy. Lydia wanted Jackson - hell, Lydia had shown more interest in _Scott_ than she ever had in Stiles. The realization hurt, but it was the final push he needed to let her go. He wasn’t about to begrudge her or Jackson their happiness. He still cared for Lydia, he always would; but the nature of the way he cared for her slowly changed. They were something approaching friends now. He appreciated it all the more, since Scott was dividing his Stiles-time with Isaac and Allison.

 

Anyway, he was fine. It had taken him months, but he was okay. That wasn’t the problem. The _problem_ was that Stiles’ perceptions were still changing. Lydia and Jackson were one – well, two – things, but Stiles was beginning to see _everyone_ differently now. He had caught himself staring at Kyle Chung’s shoulders for one very weird moment in AP World History and while he sat there frantically thinking about it, he realized similar things had been happening for a while. There was Megan the librarian with her curly ponytail, but there was also Ryan the barista with his ridiculous hands. And pack meetings for at least all of August because Derek Hale’s thighs. Possibly the entirety of Derek Hale, but he was still stuck on DEREK HALE’S THIGHS.

 

How was he supposed to feel about this? He didn’t even know _what_ the hell.

 

So, yeah. Stiles was having a big pseudo-gay freak out, and he had questions, but he couldn’t even Google them. These were the kinds of things you actually had to ask somebody. Stiles didn’t like going to other people with his problems at the best of times, but he was kind of out of options at this point.

 

…And _that_ was why Stiles was still here, licking his lips and trying to look at anything except Danny. Fuck. This was probably a terrible idea. No, scratch that. This was one of the worst ideas Stiles ever had. He should just run away, seriously. He could change in like, two minutes flat and bolt before Danny even realized he was still here. He could just forget about everything and go home, do his homework, fuck around on the internet, pretend it was just another normal day…

 

But that wouldn’t change the fact that he needed information. And this was the perfect chance! Who knew when he’d get another one? Danny was here, he was laid-back and he’d probably put up with questions as long as he thought they were in good faith. How many other people could Stiles go to about this? He needed to at least try, or else he’d be beating himself up all night.

 

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, trying to gather whatever courage he could scrape together. _If all else fails, we’ll abort the mission and run,_ he promised himself. _Now say something before you lose your nerve, idiot._

 

“Hey, uh, Danny?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

_Oh god, oh god, oh god. No, I’m doing this._ “I just… um.” _Think, Stiles! Say words!_ “You used to be in the GSA, right?”

 

“Yeah, before I joined the team. Why?” Danny swung his locker shut, slapped a padlock on the door, and glanced over at him.

 

“Uh,” he mumbled. His heart was pounding and he couldn’t feel much of anything else. He needed to tread carefully here, seriously. He usually just blurted stuff out or rambled on about whatever, but approximately ninety-nine percent of the things that would come out of his mouth if he did that right now would be super incriminating. “I was just – how was it?”

 

“It was fine. I would have stayed in it if I had the time. Were you thinking of joining?”

 

Stiles felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. Danny didn’t sound overly invested in the conversation, which clearly meant he was pulling this off. “Uh, no. Not really. I mean, I don't really have the time, either. I mean, I wasn't planning to quit the team or anything. I was just… wondering?"

 

“Wondering.” Danny repeated neutrally. “About GSA.”

 

“Yeah, you know...” Stiles trailed off. Danny’s hands came up to his collar, and he tugged off his shirt. Stiles quickly looked away before he could get much more than a glimpse of tan skin. “I mean. You’re gay, right?” _Shit. Shit!_ “Uh, gay and… out,” Stiles went on. He fought to keep the cringe off of his face. It was a near thing. Danny’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t seem too pissed off at Stiles’ blunder, thank _god._

 

“Yeah…?”

 

“Well, does - does anyone give you shit about it?”

 

Danny tilted his head to the side, tapping his fingers against the strap of his bag. “Sometimes,” he said finally. “There are a few assholes, but not as much as you'd think. Beacon Hills isn't that bad. Usually it's just stupid questions or jokes, and honestly? The joke is kind of on them, you know what I mean?” He smiled at Stiles, all dimples and teeth. Suspiciously _sharp_ teeth, for a human. “Does that make you feel better?”

 

“Feel better?” Stiles repeated. Had he missed something here? “About what?“

 

“I mean you don't have to worry too much if you want to be out, too."

 

_Oh god. Oh god. Oh shit, he knows!_

 

Stiles blindly groped for his bag and lacrosse stick, somewhere behind him. He had barely started to make good on his self-promise of turning tail and _running the fuck away_ when a hand landed on his shoulder, preventing any hopes he might have had of escape. Stiles froze. Hardly anything was audible over the sound of his heartbeat, or the rate of his breathing – which had picked up to the point where he sounded like he had just got done doing the ‘30’ part of a ‘30-60,’ but Danny’s voice, when he finally spoke, was all Jackson-esque hissing and sweet-tasting venom.

 

“Do you have a problem with gay people, _Stilinski_?"

 

The hairs on the back of Stiles’ arms literally rose. He laughed, going for casual, but even he had to admit it bordered on demented. “What? _No._ No, I don’t, I –“

 

“ - Okay,” Danny cut him off. “So you know that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.”

 

“Yeah, obviously. I mean, it’s not a Thing. Not any kind of deal -“

 

“So you know that it doesn’t really matter who you like.” Danny tightened his grip. Stiles would be surprised if he didn’t wind up with at least a greenish bruise. “Right?”

 

“Yeah, it’s great, no, it’s all good –“

 

“Okay,” Danny said, suddenly back to his calm, even-keeled self. He let go of Stiles and belted his bag across his shoulder, easy as you please. Stiles stood there like a total idiot, brain reeling as it tried to deal with the sudden change. Danny charitably ignored him and his gaping mouth, making his way towards the door. “Did that answer your question?” he asked, tossing it over his shoulder at Stiles.

 

Stiles forced his hands to release their death grip on his shirt. He still had to change into it, and now it was going to be covered in wrinkles. “…Yes?”

 

“Cool,” Danny said, and just like that he was gone. When the door stilled in its frame, and Stiles knew that he was alone now, he let himself collapse. _Breathe,_ he told himself, floating on a confusing swell of relief and residual fear. _Just fucking breathe._ He was suddenly immensely glad that whole conversation had been private. Just talking to Danny about his gay thing – or, whatever, his I-guess-I-like-dudes-as-well-as-ladies thing – was bad enough. Danny didn’t even know the whole story! If Scott had been here - God, if his _dad_ had been here, the psyche-shattering pain and horror would only be getting started.

 

It was hard enough having a gay thing. When it coincided with a carrier thing? Ha ha, yeah. That was definitely not a conversation he was going to have any time soon. It would be a far more traumatic de-closeting experience than anyone should have to deal with. _Far._

 

Stiles slid further down towards the floor, and directed a strangled laugh up towards the ceiling. Whenever he did have the conversation, he already knew what direction it would go in. He had a vague idea about wanting kids someday, but he was nowhere near ready to think seriously about having babies, let alone the… method. Fuck, forget thinking about it, his dad and Scott would expect him to talk. Coherently. Just... no.

 

Anyway, it was all kind of a moot point. Both of them had the uncanny, borderline frightening ability to pick up what Stiles felt about things without him having to say a word. He just needed to give them time.  _Until then,_ he thought, _I think I can be forgiven for keeping this to myself._ And he wasn’t going to feel bad about it, either.

 

*

 

Stiles body-checked the freshman blocking his driver’s-side door and started tossing all of his bags into the backseat of his jeep. The sounds his bags and lacrosse stick made as they tangled with the other junk he kept back there were kind of satisfying, just on a visceral level, but not quite enough. He was on the warpath right now, rattled; he needed someone to punch, someone to scream at, another kanima to plow into with his car --

 

His keys fell to the asphalt between his feet with a soft clink. Stiles barely got a glimpse of Scott reflected in the window of his jeep before he was being grabbed, spun around, and pinned up against the door. To say he was startled would be an understatement; Scott never got physical with him like this. Hell, not even Derek had given him a werewolf-level manhandling in months. The most he had gotten was probably Danny’s terrifying iron grip of death earlier this week. If Scott was jumping on that bandwagon now, Stiles didn’t know if he should be, like, _proud_ or outright concerned.

 

“Dude, Stiles! I was calling you for, like, five minutes!” Scott looked like someone had taken his birthday cake away, doing a complex blend of a scowl and a pout. Otherwise he looked pretty casual standing there, barely holding his backpack on his shoulder with one red canvas strap, but he was bracketing Stiles in a way that left no escape. Honestly, before now Stiles didn’t really know Scott had it in him to be so effortlessly menacing. “Didn’t you hear me?”

 

“Uh, no, apparently not,” Stiles said, jerking his shoulder away from that tight grip. Seriously, he bruised like a peach, and Danny had left him sore enough without werewolf strength being added into the mix. “What the hell, man? Why aren’t you at practice?”

 

“You’re asking _me_?” Scott gaped for a minute. His eyebrows quirked and shot towards his hairline, and then he just shook his head, making his bangs fall over his forehead. Scott’s childish pout turned into something more sincere, making him look genuinely upset. “Dude, what is going on?” He asked, much quieter this time. “Look, are… are you mad at me?”

 

“What?” Stiles jerked back, caught totally wrong-footed. Those wicked doe eyes Scott had slid straight into his chest like a shot. It really did make his chest ache, although it wasn’t really a physical sensation, just guilt. He really did feel bad whenever Scott got upset on his behalf like this, but deep down he had to admit it was kind of funny, in a way.

 

It was just ironic that Scott was trying to apologize over nothing right now, when in the past couple of years he had ditched Stiles for Isaac and Allison, tried to kill him, ignored his calls even when he was in mortal peril, tried to kill him, kept important information from him, and oh yes: _tried to kill him_. Stiles had never gotten a single apology for those. He had let it slide, because usually those things could all be traced back to werewolf business, and Stiles tried to be understanding, but still. Definitely some irony here.

 

“Stiles?” Scott repeated. He placed his hands lightly on Stiles’ biceps, looking pained.

 

“Uh.” He bent down to pick up his keys, trying to think of what to say. “No, I just – it’s not your fault, okay?” _Not this time._ “I was just kind of… pissed off at something.”

 

Scott frowned at him. “No shit, Stiles! I think I kind of got that by the way you came stomping out here like Godzilla. And, oh yeah, how you’re skipping practice even though you kept talking about getting first line?”

 

“Look, it’s just – “ Stiles clenched his jaw, looking away. All he wanted to do was go home and chill the fuck out with some coke and Katamari Damacy. He hadn’t been planning to talk about this with anybody: not his dad, and not even Scott. It was nice that Scott had noticed when something was bothering him, but that still didn’t mean he wanted to stand around and actually… focus on it.

 

Tell Finstock I had a thing. You’re co-captain, he’ll listen to you. I’m busy.” Scott pursed his lips, and Stiles could tell he was seriously unimpressed. It made Stiles bristle, but before he could say anything else, Scott was plucking his keys out of his hands and unlocking the rest of the doors. “I – hey! What the hell are you doing?”

 

“Skipping.” Scott made a beeline for the passenger door. “Gimme a ride.” Stiles glared at him from the other side of the jeep, but Scott didn’t care. He just stood there, framed in the open door, smiling. When he pulled off his backpack to unload it in the back along with all of Stiles’ stuff, he looked way too fucking satisfied with himself. Stiles may not have been angry with Scott before, but he was seriously getting there.

 

“ _Dude._ ” He tried to put as much weighty disapproval into that word as he possibly could, but it looked like it just rolled off of Scott’s back like water.

 

“You’re not going, why should I?” Scott asked, sliding up into the seat. He leaned over and stuck the key in the ignition, starting up the engine. The doors were wide open and none of the seatbelts were done up, so the automatic sensors started beeping and dinging. To add insult to injury, Scott went for the radio next. He clicked through the scanner and, within seconds, had landed on a fucking mariachi station. _Mariachi._ Scott knew – deliberately knew – that Stiles couldn’t stand mariachi music. He was obviously taking lessons in being a huge prick from Derek, that _fucker._

 

“I? Am not going because I will murder Rossi and Sontag if I see them again today. Murder, Scott. Now get the hell out of my car!” Stiles clambered into the drivers' seat and slapped Scott’s hand away from the radio buttons. Scott, however, did not get the hell out of Stiles’ car. He just sat there, gawping in total confusion, before his eyes flashed gold. Stiles felt murderous, but he had to admit that Scott had the market cornered on visible homicidal intent. If he weren’t so annoyed with Scott for being a stubborn, concerned friend, he would actually find it touching.

 

“Why Rossi and Sontag? Did they say something to you?”

 

“No, they didn’t – not to me. Not exactly.” But with the way he felt right now, they might as well have.

 

Stiles had spent the entirety of his Social Studies class sitting in his desk and fucking… stewing in his own juices. The teacher had been covering social movements from the 1950’s onwards, and when they began talking about women’s rights, someone had brought up carriers and then the whole lecture went straight to fucking Hell.

 

It wasn’t like Rossi and Sontag were the only people saying dumb shit, but they were two of the worst. Sontag in particular had been right across from Stiles when he said, “ _You know, if I was a carrier, I would just, like, kill myself. From the sheer humiliation, I mean... Christ._ ”

 

Yeah. A lot of horrible shit had been said. But for whatever reason, that was one of the phrases that Stiles’ brain had latched on to. It had been playing on repeat inside his head ever since. He could hardly even concentrate in the rest of his classes; Scott might have thought he was acting weird in English last hour, but in all honesty it was kind of a miracle Stiles had been able to sit through it all without screaming at someone. He wasn’t going to be too hard on himself for that one.

 

The worst part? Stiles couldn’t speak up once during that whole nightmare of a discussion. He pretty much had to just suffer in silence. He was a senior, but he was still at the bottom of the food chain for his year. If anyone – anyone – found out what he was, or even suspected, his life would be over. O – V – E – R, _over_. People killed themselves over stuff like this. Hell, one carrier who was a High School Junior – Deshawn Bray, in Ohio – had made national news last spring for that exact thing.

 

So while listening to twenty minutes of trash talk by Rossi and Sontag and the rest of the class was pure fucking agony, it sure as hell beat the alternative. He knew that, intellectually, but it didn’t make him any less frustrated. Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, trying to count in his head. He got to ten and he was still pissed off, so he switched to Spanish. It still took him until fourteen before he felt like he could act like a somewhat rational person again.

 

When he looked over at Scott, he thought that he must have used some of that silence sliding puzzle pieces together, because he seemed to have caught on to what Stiles had been saying. His expression cleared, and then clouded over again, making him seem almost… pained. “I could break into their houses and tear all of them apart for you,” Scott offered. He lifted up his hand from where it had been resting on the seat between them. His claws slid out, growing right in front of Stiles’ eyes.

 

It was kind of gross, honestly, but once again, Stiles couldn’t help but appreciate the horrifically violent show of support. “Nah. You’d be breaking the code, and then Allison couldn’t be with you any more.”

 

“I guess.” Scott sounded way too reluctant and disappointed at being shot down than he probably should have. “You know, we would always get her to do it. She’s accurate up to, like, sixty meters or something.”

 

Okay, now that was a mental image. Picturing Allison raining holy Hawkeye-style wrath onto his fifth-period classmates made a not-so-small, dark part of him feel pretty damn gleeful. “Tempting, man, very tempting. I gotta say.” He mused. “But they wouldn’t even know what they did wrong. You know? I’d have to explain it to them, and it’s not like I can do that.”

 

Scott sighed, letting his hand fall again. “Yeah. That’s so stupid,” he mumbled. He leaned back into the seat and tugged his phone out of his pocket. Stiles checked his mirrors, and began backing out the parking space. Stiles honestly didn’t mind giving Scott a ride if he decided he wanted one, lacrosse practice be damned. The two of them could both go head-to-head as far as sheer bloody-mindedness, so no matter how hard Stiles might try, he wouldn’t be able to convince him otherwise. “I’m just going to let Allison know I’m getting out early,” Scott added. Stiles saw him pull up the messaging window out of the corner of his eye. Stiles smirked at that.

 

Scott and Allison were slowly trying to patch things up, meaning they had ended their previous radio silence. Scott wasn’t as clingy as he had been before, but he still told Allison –

 

Told her everything –

 

_Oh god._

 

Stiles sucked in a breath, and stepped on the brake. He and Scott both jerked forwards from the sudden change in momentum, but he flung out an arm to grab Scott’s shoulder, making him honest to god squawk Stiles’ name. His cell phone slipped out of his hands and went clattering into the foot well, and he made an aborted attempt to lean down and get it. “Hey,” Stiles said, giving him a little shake. “Did you ever tell Allison?” Scott just stared at him in response, looking completely confused. Stiles shook him again, rougher this time; trying to get him to focus. “About _me_ , Scott! Did you ever tell Allison about _me_?”

 

Stiles had never heard Allison trashing carriers, but that didn’t necessarily mean she would be cool with Stiles if she found out, either. She might accept him straight away, but that was a big ‘if,’ and Stiles really wasn’t willing to take that chance with anyone. Not yet, at least.

 

“No,” Scott said finally. He gently pulled free of Stiles’ grip on his arm, bending down to fish his phone out from where it had slid under his seat. “I never told her. Why?” He looked up at Stiles, looking completely mystified. Stiles couldn’t help but feel annoyed at that. Seriously, was Scott honestly this clueless? Did he really have no idea why Stiles would want to just – _make sure_?

 

“Can you really blame me for asking, dude?” He snapped. He let go of the brake and turned back onto the road that led out of the school parking lot. “You tell her everything. Maybe I just thought you might have mentioned it or let it slip. Excuse me for wanting to be absolutely positive.”

 

Scott sucked in a breath, then let it out. He didn’t say anything as Stiles pulled out onto the road that led to the highway. For once, Stiles was too wound up to break the silence with his normal carefree chatter, either. Unlike most of their silences together, this wasn’t comfortable. Stiles kind of wished Scott _would_ say something – even if it was just to start a fight with him – so he wouldn’t have to be left alone in his own head anymore. It really wasn’t a nice place to be stuck in, today.

 

Scott didn’t speak up until they were stuck at a traffic light, maybe three blocks from Scott’s neighborhood. His head was turned towards the window as though Beacon Hills’ one 24-hour grocery store was totally new and fascinating, which it wasn’t; so it meant that he just didn’t want to be looking at Stiles right now.

 

“You know I wouldn't ever tell anyone about that, right?” Scott asked softly. “I mean, like, even if you didn't care about keeping it on the DL or whatever. It's just -- it's your business. You know?"

 

The light turned green. Stiles pulled forward, going on total autopilot while he thought.

 

Maybe – _maybe_ \- he should have known better. Scott had done a lot of shit to him, but none of it was really intentional. He had never deliberately screwed Stiles over. Well, okay, there was the thing with Lydia Sophomore year, but… water under the bridge. The important thing was, Scott had never betrayed Stiles’ confidence about this. Allison or no, there was no reason to think that Scott would do it now. _Hell, Scott will probably take this secret to his grave, if I ask him to._

 

“Thanks man,” Stiles said finally. All of the fight and residual tension drained out of him, leaving him boneless and weak against the seat. He made a right turn into Scott’s neighborhood, and slowed down. “Sorry, I guess. I was -- this isn’t exactly news, but you’re pretty much the best friend ever.”

 

Scott looked over at that. He gave Stiles a warm, pleased smile, looking way more relaxed. Stiles returned it automatically, and some of the dull, latent anger that had been buzzing in the back of his head turned quiet. It was kind of like clipping the correctly colored wire on a bomb, just defusing everything before it could all start spinning out of control.

 

He was really glad Scott hitchhiked with him today, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

The pack meeting Friday night started off fine. Better than fine, even; it was great.

 

Lacrosse practice had been canceled that afternoon, since a homecoming fundraiser was being hosted on the field. Coach Finstock had complained about it and was promptly told to fuck off by the school administration. Not even Jackson was mad about that, and he had been driving the team hard in order to get them to State in his last year as Captain. (When Stiles asked, out of pure curiosity, Jackson just claimed ‘ _the actual season doesn’t start until spring, idiot. We have time_.’ Personally, Stiles thought Jackson wanted to pay Finstock back for reinstating Scott as co-Captain; but he wasn’t about to test that theory by asking Jackson to his face.)

 

Since practice was canceled, the pack had an earlier start to the meeting, which helped them burn through the standard ‘what’s going on this week’ discussion pretty quickly. There were no other pressing werewolf crises du jour, so everyone settled in easily after that. Peter and Boyd went into the kitchen to make dinner, while the rest piled on the living room couches and carpeted floor around the TV. The Betas, in no time at all, organized an impromptu Mario Kart tournament. Scott had been the one to bring the Wii over in the first place, so he was automatically seeded past the qualifier round. Stiles did his best to bring the pain, but he found himself absolutely floored as Erica trounced him first thing.

 

“Alright,” he said, levering himself off the floor. He handed the controller to Isaac and settled next to Derek on the couch, poking Erica in the shoulder with his toe. “You know this means you have to win the whole thing, right? I didn’t let you beat me just so you could get dominated in the next round.”

 

Erica didn't even turn around. She just gave him the finger and pawed behind her back, trying to catch Stiles' foot. He tugged it back, laughing, and tucked both of his feet underneath him to stay safe from her claws. When the next face-off between her and Isaac started up, he leaned forward to massage her shoulders like she was between rounds in the boxing ring and he was her coach. Not to be outdone, Scott rolled over onto the floor to take care of Isaac.

 

_This is pretty nice_ , Stiles realized. This was the first pack meeting of the school year, and it was pretty obvious everyone was already missing summer and its endless free hours that they had been able to spend together. It had basically been a trial-by-fire bonding experience, and right now it felt like they were all a little desperate to reconnect. Just being with the people who meant so much to him, soaking everything in, was amazing. They were pretty much a healthily functioning pack now. It hadn’t been easy getting to this point, obviously; and they had a long way to go. _But this is the first time I’ve ever had anything like this._

 

Stiles watched Isaac give Erica a good run for her money, then let his attention wander. Peter and Boyd were scraping pots together in the kitchen, and Stiles could hear the oven making metallic popping sounds while it heated. Scott was texting Allison, trying to look as though he wasn’t; Lydia had a bottle of acetone and was removing this week’s manicure. Jackson had his arm thrown around her shoulders and was tugging out his cell phone, taking a call. He didn’t seem bothered about the rest of the pack overhearing his conversation; but to be fair, he’d have to go halfway across the complex if he really wanted privacy.

 

Losing interest, Stiles had no sooner turned his attention back to the TV than his ears caught on the words, “ _Hey Sontag, what’s going on_?”

 

Stiles couldn’t help it. His grip tightened on the armrest, and he glanced over at Jackson.

 

Jackson was blocking out the sound of the video game with one hand over his free ear, phone held up to the other. He sprawled backwards on the couch, smirking up towards the ceiling. “Yeah, for homecoming. Yeah. We can have it at my house, my parents are out of town that weekend. Yeah – hold on.” Jackson pulled the phone away from his face and muffled the mouthpiece against his shoulder. “Hey, Derek, which Saturday were we meeting this month?”

 

“Week after next,” Derek said calmly. He didn’t even glance away from the television, where Isaac was pulling ahead.

 

“’Kay.”

 

Jackson went back to his conversation, hammering out the details of the party he and Sontag were going to host. Stiles’ heart began to pound. He didn’t really know why. He had been over all of that shit from yesterday, he really had been. He even sat through social studies today feeling perfectly fine! So why was that angry rush coming back now? What was it about one stupid phone call – one that he wasn’t even a part of – that could make him feel so pissed off?

 

_It’s fine. I’m fine._ Stiles took a deliberately slow breath, in and out.

 

He knew he wasn’t going to be invited. Even though he was in the pack with Jackson, it didn’t make any difference in his high school social status. Even if Jackson _did_ invite him, Stiles wouldn’t go; he wouldn’t _want_ to go. He liked being with the pack, but he didn’t really want to hang out with some of the members of Jackson and Lydia’s greater social circle, especially when he… kind of had a secret personal beef with them.

 

So, yeah. Stiles already knew Jackson was kind of an asshole. That’s just the way Jackson was with everyone as a general rule. Stiles knew that he and Rossi and Sontag and some other (asshole) guys from the Lacrosse team hung out together. He’d seen them around school ever since freshman year.

 

Why was it bothering him _now_?

 

Out of his peripheral vision, Stiles saw Derek turning his head to look at him. _Fuck. He can probably hear my heart, or like, smell righteous anger. I seriously need to calm down._ He got up from the couch, trying to stomp down on all of his frustration. “I’ll be right back,” he mumbled.

 

He shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the taps. He rinsed his face, and then leaned over the sink, letting ice-cold water run over his wrists. It was a trick his mother had showed him for the hot Californian springs and summers, and even though it was autumn now, Stiles really needed the cool down. He didn’t like to spend too much time alone with his thoughts. Normally, if he let them loop and repeat for too long, they dragged him down into depths of his own head that he probably shouldn’t get too far in to. He would be fine, though. He just needed a few minutes to himself right now, and then he could… pull himself back up –

 

Someone came knocking at the door then, of fucking course. Stiles stomped down on the urge to roll his eyes. It was probably Lydia, wanting to wash off her hands. Or Scott, if he had noticed something was wrong again. _Both Scott and Lydia can be annoyingly observant_ , Stiles thought, swallowing down a curse.

 

He turned off the taps and, while he dried his hands, glanced up at himself in the mirror. He looked fine, though; nothing should have made anyone think he looked like he needed help. He seemed a bit drained, maybe? But that was probably because of the fluorescent lights more than anything he was feeling.

 

Stiles sighed and tugged open the door, reflexively pulling back as he found himself face-to-face with their scowling Alpha. “Derek,” he said, some of the surprise leaking into his voice. Wow, definitely not who he was expecting, here. “Uh. Sorry, buddy. Did you need to answer the call of nature or something?”

 

Derek just huffed in response, leaning over to look past Stiles, searching the bathroom. From the looks of it Derek expected someone in a leather cat suit and a balaclava to be skulking in the corner with a ka-bar, or maybe he thought Stiles was in here snooping where he shouldn’t be. When Derek eventually deemed the bathroom safe from intruders, or that Stiles was on the level, or whatever the hell he was thinking, he finally pulled back. “What’s wrong with you?” He asked, sweeping his eyes up and down Stiles from head to toe.

 

Stiles felt his lips twitch. _Never let it be said that Derek Hale doesn’t have complete delicacy and tact._ “It’s nothing.” He lied, barreling on before Derek could say anything about it. Werewolves, heartbeats; God this was getting old. “I just remembered something from yesterday that pissed me off. I’ll be fine.”

 

Derek crossed his arms over his chest, so he was practically taking up the whole doorway. Judging by the way his eyebrows moved, he was caught somewhere between personal offense and outright suspicion. “If something is affecting you this badly –“

 

“Don’t worry about it.” Stiles cut him off. “I just want to let it drop.” This wasn’t really funny anymore. His dad and Scott, he expected -- but _Derek_? Sure, the guy had been working hard at being an Alpha. He had made a lot of improvements, and was actually shaping up into a decent leader. But Stiles never expected Derek to read him this well. (Like, at all. Ever.)

 

To be completely honest, it made him nervous.

 

His Dad and Scott were the two people in Stiles’ life who were closest to him. They had more insight to his personality and the things that bothered him, and that was fine. Melissa McCall was also the closest thing he had to a mother, anymore; although she did her best to give him privacy and space. Lydia was also genius with people, and if she put her mind to it, she’d probably be able to read Stiles like a book. But beyond their tentative friendship, she didn’t bother giving him any attention.

 

But what if Derek was becoming versed in Stiles-ese, now? What would that mean? What might he figure out about Stiles that Stiles didn’t want him to? Hopefully Derek was just here in his role as Alpha, fulfilling some weird duty to a human pack member. Not as anything more personal or interested than that.

 

Stiles had been telling the truth when he said he wanted to let it go, and Derek clearly knew it; but Derek was now visibly debating whether or not to push. Feeling trapped and raw, Stiles made the decision for him. He squeezed past Derek though the door, heading back to the living room. That should be the end of their private moment. Derek didn’t exactly have a normal definition of ‘boundaries’ or ‘privacy,’ but he hated talking about emotions, especially in a whole group. Conversation thus forcibly ended, there was nothing for Derek to do but settle back down next to Stiles on the couch.

 

It took him completely by surprise when, just after getting settled, Derek pelted him in the face with one of the throw pillows. “Hey!” Stiles squawked, catching it as it tumbled down into his lap. “What the hell!” He turned to look at Derek, but he only got a second pillow in his face for his trouble. “What the – _fuck_ ,” he laughed, trying to catch it out of reflex.

 

"Silence from the peanut gallery," Erica snapped from the floor. She took a vicious turn, and tilted her whole body to the side. "Mama Reyes is about to _dominate_ McCall."

 

Stiles just rolled his eyes at her, and then finally turned to glare at Derek. The dark-haired man was trying – and spectacularly failing – to hide a self-satisfied smirk, staring innocently at the TV.

 

Stiles couldn’t help but laugh.

 

*

 

" _Hey Stiles._ "

 

"Yyyyyep. Hey, buddy." Stiles cradled his cell phone between his chin and his shoulder, leaving his hands free for his keyboard. He was being swamped by slime monsters, and he had to split his attention between the screen and his call with Scott, but he was almost at a new high score.

 

" _You wanna go to Macy's with me_?"

 

"Buhhh," Stiles drawled, taking a second to actually process the words. "Macy's? You mean you want a _ride_ to Macy's. Also..." He took a turn through the sewers. "Why?"

 

Scott took a minute to answer. " _Aren't you coming to the homecoming dance_?"

 

"Uh, no?" Stiles grimaced. Why would Scott even ask? "We never go to dances."

 

" _Well, um, Allison and I are going_..."

 

"Right." Stiles rapidly clicked on a horde of slugs that had come squelching out of the darkness. "Uh, you kids have fun. If you really need a ride to the mall, I can give you one; but I'm just gonna fuckin' hang around Gamestop, dude."

 

Scott sighed, his breath making the line crackle for a moment. " _Come on, it'll be more fun if you're there. You should ask Lydia_."

 

"Are you retarded?" Stiles scoffed at his screen, even though no one was there to see it. "Look, the winter formal was a one-time thing. Lydia and Jackson are... Lydia and Jackson. And, as hilarious as this might seem to you, Scott, it's kind of depressing when your crush has to be blackmailed into going to a dance with you." That whole night had turned out to be nightmarish in a lot of ways, to be fair; but Lydia sitting despondently across from him at a table in the gymnasium wasn't exactly a high point of his night.

 

" _I guess_ ," Scott mumbled, or something like it. " _You could come stag_?"

 

"Even more pathetic," Stiles shot back, coincidentally also shooting some slugs into some... slugs... as well. "Just in a different way."

 

" _So ask someone else, then_."

 

Stiles muffled a curse and switched his phone to his other shoulder. His ear was getting hot and itchy, and he was losing patience with this whole conversation as it was. "Like who? Even if someone said yes, they'd just get sucked into our werewolf clique. Fuck and no." It was hard enough having his dad outside of the loop. Why would he want more people in his life who had no idea about the paranormal?

 

His best-case scenario would be one night of fun with somebody, but not too much fun, so they could go their separate ways again after the dance. Worst-case scenario, Stiles would just get attached to yet another person where a relationship would be doomed from the start; and he didn't feel like hurting anyone else by having to lie to them all the time. Even if it was just lying by omission and keeping secrets to protect people, well...

 

Even the best intentions left you feeling guilty and alienated.

 

" _So_..." Scott sounded hurt, as if Stiles had just said he wished Melissa would butt out of his life or something. He made a soft noise of distress. " _You're just... going to give up_?"

 

"I'm not --" Stiles stumbled over his words. "It's not 'giving up,' Scott." He paused his game, and leaned back in his chair, staring up unseeingly at his ceiling. "I wasn't trying for anything in the first place."

 

" _That's... Stiles..._ "

 

"What?"

 

" _Don't you want to... be with somebody? I just, I don't like seeing you alone. I mean, Allison makes me happier than anything, but I wish you had that, too_."

 

"And you think that's going to happen by me asking out some stranger."

 

" _You never know_!" Scott protested right away, although he didn't even sound like he quite believed himself.

 

"Look, dude, we're like, seventeen. It's great that you and Allison found each other already, but don't you think it's a lot of pressure to tell me I should have a soul mate or something before we even graduate high school?"

 

You could practically hear Scott pouting on the other end of the line. " _It's just a dance_."

 

Stiles slapped a hand over his face.

 

" _And the whole pack is going to be there!_ " Scott went on. " _We'll be, like, bonding. So Derek will be mad if you don't go_."

 

"Derek won't be there," Stiles said slowly, making sure Scott could hear exactly what he was thinking by his enunciation. "And neither will I."

 

Scott was silent on the other end, long enough that Stiles actually tugged his phone away from his ear so he could make sure that he didn't accidentally press the mute button with his face or the call didn't drop or something.

 

" _I just don't want you to be alone_ ," Scott finally said again. " _Okay, I get it, you don't need to be in love with somebody or whatever, but you and me always used to hang out and stuff. I don't want you to be the only one left out_."

 

Stiles took in a deep breath. He let his eyes close, and he rubbed at them gently with his fingertips.

 

He was about to argue that he wouldn't be lonely. He didn't need to spend his Saturday nights surrounded by drunk people or dancing or swaying to a slow ballad with a gorgeous girl ( _or guy_ , a new and still kind of scary voice in his mind piped up) or even playing video games with Scott like he used to. But Stiles knew the truth, even if Scott couldn’t hear the lies over the phone. He _would_ be lonely.

 

Shit, he already felt lonely.

 

He had more friends now than ever before, but his father and best friend both had less time for him this year than they used to, and his friends were practically all paired up. They shared things with each other that were... still private, secret, inclusive. These days, Stiles just had the privacy of his own mind, secrets he wished he didn't have, and a bit more distance between him and other people than he would have liked.

 

He really didn't want to be the only one sitting at home while the rest of the pack - the rest of the whole damn school, practically - went out and had fun. He just hadn't realized that he would be, until now, when Scott had to call him up and inadvertently make him feel like the biggest loser in Beacon Hills.

 

_Then again_ , Stiles thought slowly, pulling his hand away from his face, _I did just say that I wouldn't be the only one of the pack missing out, didn't I? Derek will be sitting at home alone, too_. Well, unless you counted Peter; but Stiles knew better than almost anybody that Peter didn't really count as company you wanted to have around without back-up.

 

“Would you feel better if I weren’t sitting at home alone?” Stiles asked. “More specifically, would you stop bugging me about it?”

 

“ _Yeah_ ,” Scott said, sounding a lot happier than he had just a few moments ago.

 

“I mean it.” Stiles warned. “One more word about the homecoming dance and dates or whatever from you and I will go fur trader on your little werewolf ass.”

 

“ _Yeah, Stiles, I promise_.” Scott chuckled. “ _But no cheating. Ventrilo doesn’t count as hanging out with people_.”

 

“Fuck off,” Stiles said, but there wasn’t any bite to it. He squeezed his phone tighter in his hand, half wondering what the fuck he was even thinking. “Well, I might make plans with somebody. I’ll let you know.”

 

Scott was more than happy to let him go after that, even though Stiles was sure he’d be calling back in ten minutes to just ask outright for that ride to Macy’s. He stared down at his phone after they hung up, and he pulled up the message window with Derek. The last message was an ‘ **`ok`** ’ that had been sent three weeks ago; and there was a ‘ **`@dentist running late`** ’ before that. Actually, for all the time they had spent in each other’s presence, there was very little direct contact they had with each other unless it was necessary.

 

He tapped out a new message. **`What are you doing next next Sat?`** He hit send without agonizing over his wording. Sometimes Stiles liked to torture himself by over-analyzing anything and everything, and sometimes he wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and barrel through things as fast as he could so they could be over with. This was one of those times.

 

God, seriously, though. What the fuck did he think he was doing? He already knew what the outcome of this would be -

 

Derek's response was disturbingly fast. **`Why?`** Stiles raised an eyebrow.

 

**`We're the only two responsible adults not going to homecoming, I guarantee you they will call us for rides, you need backup`** he sent, and then immediately sent another. **`I'll be there @9`**

 

One minute ticked by, then another. Stiles clicked out of the message window, then back in again, then went back to his home screen and pulled up his weather app to see what the temperature was. He didn’t really care, but he _did_ notice that it was supposed to be unseasonably hot tomorrow, which meant Lacrosse practice would be miserable. Another minute ticked by. _Damn it, Derek. Just tell me to fuck off already._

 

Okay, he shouldn't have done the 'false confidence' thing. Clearly it never worked out for him like it did for other people. Might as well distract himself while he awaited rejection. Stiles tossed his phone on the bed, and un-paused his PC game. He was right back into the fray, aiming through a rifle scope at the boss of the level's eyeball, only to die as he heard his suddenly piercing message alert chime. He had a little flashing letter icon trumpeting '1 unopened message' from Derek.

 

Stiles wasted another minute screwing up the courage to go and read it. All it said was, `**ok bring pringles.**  `“Dick,” Stiles said out loud. He threw his phone back on to the bed. He should be mad at getting such an anticlimactic message in return for all of that anxiety. Instead, he was grinning. Forget his high score on Sewer Slugs 2, Stiles Stilinski had successfully imposed his presence on Derek Hale. That was a true accomplishment. “In your face, Scott.”

 

Stiles didn't feel quite so smug three hours later as he found himself picking out colored ties that would match Allison's dress, but... _c'est la vie_.

 

*

 

Stiles may not have been going to the homecoming dance, but he still spent a good forty minutes after he showered on Saturday night standing naked in his bedroom, air drying and methodically pulling his closet apart. He ended up with nice pair of jeans (last worn to the Sheriff Department’s annual award ceremony), an equally nice button-up (still not wrinkled, since he had hung it up after he bought it and practically never touched it again), and a vintage Star Trek: The Next Generation shirt (sinfully soft from being washed dozens of times) underneath that.

 

Seriously, he wasn’t a total slob or anything, but by this point Derek should have no illusions about him being cool.

 

By the time he arrived at Derek and Peter’s apartment building, it was already dark, and his jeans felt like they were trying to bruise his hipbones. The wind ripped straight through him when he stepped out of his jeep, and he crossed his arms tight around his chest and jogged across the parking lot, taking the steps to Derek’s floor two at a time. The only upshot to the cold was that it made him forget all about how nervous and afraid for his own life he was supposed to feel.

 

The apartment complex’s doors were all the same, but Stiles could always tell which one was Derek’s, thanks to the beige eyesore of a welcome mat laid out in front of the threshold. Stiles smirked every time he saw it. It was stitched with two purple irises and read ‘Welcome Friends’ in a the most obnoxious cursive script mankind had ever designed. He and Scott had discovered it at a hardware store last June, and it had only taken Stiles one look at it to know what must be done. When he had come over for the next pack meeting, he had laughed himself sick when he saw Derek and Peter were actually using it. Derek had just huffed, saying it was a good place to hide a spare key for the pack to use. Peter, on the other hand, had smiled and stroked a hand down Stiles’ arm, murmuring about how it was a ‘ _very thoughtful gift, Stiles_.’ That had kind of made him stop laughing.

 

Stiles toed over the corner of the mat, but as he bent down to pick up the key his waistband cut off even more circulation and signal pathways and he lost his balance. He tipped backwards, successfully caught himself on the door, only fall completely on his ass when Derek pulled it open. And wait, seriously, what? Derek didn’t bother letting in guests. That’s what he left the key under the mat for in the first place!

 

“If I didn’t know better,” Derek said dryly, staring down at Stiles, “I would ask if all regular people are as clumsy as you are. Maybe it’s a good thing you’re not out there dancing.” He held out a hand, offering to pull Stiles up.

 

“Okay, first of all - ” Stiles let out a little grunt as Derek basically hefted him into the air with one hand. “ - I’ll have you know I can shake it. It’s not my fault you aren’t playing music.”

 

Derek raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to?”

 

Stiles stepped inside, kicking his shoes off so he wouldn’t ruin the carpet, and Derek shut the door behind him like a totally normal person. The illusion was ruined immediately afterwards when Derek threw on the deadbolt and cracked the window blinds like he was checking for a sniper, but hey. Considering some of the run-ins the pack had in the past, Stiles wasn’t about to say anything about a little healthy paranoia. “I don’t think I need that close of a look at your musical taste,” he teased.

 

Derek’s jaw tensed. For a brief moment, Stiles was sure he was about to get personally acquainted with the wall, just like old times; but the feeling passed just as quickly. “There’s nothing wrong with my musical taste,” Derek grumped, turning to head into the kitchen.

 

Stiles followed, hopping up on one of the stools near the counter. “Right, okay. just... oh my God, let me guess.” He squinted at Derek while the werewolf dug around in the fridge. “A lot of eighties power ballads?”

 

Derek didn’t bother dignifying that with a response. In the pause that followed, though, Stiles was pretty positive he could hear Derek rolling his eyes. “Did you bring the Pringles?”

 

Stiles swore. “Yeah. I left ‘em in the backseat though.”

 

Derek pulled his head back out of the fridge, whipping it around to glare at him. “You had _one job_ , Stiles. _One job_.”

 

“I’m sorry!” Stiles slapped his hands down on the counter. “Look, let’s be real here. It is a miracle I even remembered to get them at all. You never sent me a reminder -” Derek growled at him. “ - And I told you, I didn’t eat yours! That was probably Peter, framing me! I wouldn’t put it past him.”

 

Derek looked even more suspicious. “Peter would never frame _you_ for anything,” he said slowly, and wait, what the hell was _that_ supposed to mean? “But you’re not lying.” He straightened up. “What do you want to drink?”

 

Thrown, Stiles blinked for a few seconds. He seriously didn’t know what to think about this - this oddly normal host behavior. Derek, asking him what he wanted to drink? Derek, pulling two glasses out of the cabinet? What even... he would have sworn that Derek was the kind of person to drink straight from the carton, or, well, maybe not. Since he lived with Peter, Derek would have to be more hygienic about it. He probably pierced the carton with a claw, then tilted it so it would drain into his mouth...

 

...Aaaaand moving on. “Coke!” Stiles stuttered. “Um, yeah. Coke.” Derek turned back to the fridge and promptly pulled out a jug of orange juice. He meted it out into their glasses, dropping ice into both.

 

“Rude!” Stiles scoffed, trying to bite down on the smile threatening to stretch across his face. “Isn’t orange juice a little weird to have at night?”

 

“Better than giving you a stimulant,” Derek shot back.

 

He handed Stiles a glass, then herded him into the living room. Stiles had never seen it like this before. It was clean - not that he thought either of the Hales were messy people, if they could help it, but when the whole pack was here things tended to get pretty cluttered. Derek gestured Stiles towards his usual spot on the couch, then dropped two coasters onto the coffee table with a pointed look. Stiles huffed.

 

“I’m not a _savage_. Pretty sure you’re getting me confused with Scott.”

 

“Like I could,” Derek muttered.

 

He dimmed the lights. The room now seemed smaller, warm; but also a bit empty with only two people in it. Stiles had never seen it so quiet or relaxing like this, except for when he was the first person to turn up to meetings.

 

“This must feel pretty weird, huh?” He asked, looking across the room at Derek. “Not having any other wolfy pack members around. Just me.”

 

Derek glanced at him, pausing from where he was wrestling the TV remote out from underneath the armchair cushion. “It’s not that weird,” he grunted, tugging it free. “Humans are as much a part of the pack as werewolves. You know that. Three’s no difference in the bond.”

 

“Really?” Stiles remembered hearing that some of Derek’s family members who had died in the house fire had been human. He hadn’t known if they were also considered part of the actual werewolf pack as well. “I would think it would be a little different. Even, just, you know. Humans and werewolves are different...” he waved his hand in a meaningless gesture. “Different.”

 

Derek shrugged. “There’s not that much difference, for us. We’re not... we’re not a normal pack.” He dropped down next to Stiles on the couch, looking steadfastly at the remote. Stiles watched him idly from the corner of his eye, not quite sure what to say. He didn’t find himself short on words very often - practically never - but honestly, he was kind of taken aback. _I wonder if our pack disappoints him?_

 

Personally, Stiles loved it - even though they had their rough edges. They were almost all new at this, so of course they were still learning how everything worked. They had come a long way from when they were blindly stumbling through just what it meant to be a werewolf.

 

_But what must it be like for Derek?_ Stiles wondered. _Sure, he’s new at being an Alpha, but not at being in a pack. This is probably completely different from what his actual family was like._

 

The thought was... unexpectedly sad.

 

Derek finally turned on the TV. “You’re quiet,” he pointed out, flipping over to the Sci-Fi channel - Stiles’ favorite. The sheer surprise that Derek had remembered was enough to jolt him out of his train of thought, and Stiles shook the pang of sorrow away.

 

“Uh, sorry,” he said, suddenly feeling a little flustered. “I was just thinking. Our pack must be pretty far from what you... what you want.”

 

Derek looked over at him, eyebrows raised. “What do you mean?”

 

“Well...” Stiles took another drink from his glass, trying to think of how to phrase what he was thinking. He didn’t want to come across as horribly insensitive, or to say the wrong thing. “I mean, we’re all still so new to everything. You know? There’s so much that we don’t know yet. Not just about werewolf lore in general, but... just getting along with each other.”

 

“Some of that just takes time. And we’ve come a long way in four months.”

 

Stiles had to smile at that. “Yeah, we have.” _This is kind of a case in point._ “I guess I should stop being surprised at how much things can change between people. And how quickly. Uh, in a good way.” He amended.

 

Derek gave him an odd look, that Stiles wasn’t really sure how to read, and opened up his mouth to say something. Before he could, Stiles‘ phone went off, the ringer sounding too loud and out of place in the room. Stiles laughed, still feeling a little off-balance, and leaned back so he could tug his phone out of his stupidly uncomfortable pants. “It’s Scott,” he said, looking at the display before he picked up the call. “Werewolf or not, I swear he can’t hold his liquor.”

 

Derek just sighed. “I’ll find my keys.”

 

*

 

Derek had said he didn’t feel weird having only Stiles over, and that he didn’t think of the human and werewolf pack members differently, but... Stiles wasn’t sure he felt the same way.

 

He had never been alone with Derek like that before. Actually, he was pretty sure Derek had never really been alone with anyone else in the pack like that before, just hanging out. Except for Peter, maybe; but that was different since they lived together and were family.

 

Stiles hadn’t really realized it before, but he had always felt a bit lost at the pack meetings whenever they were dealing strictly with werewolf business. When the pack was just socializing, bonding, whatever, he felt fine. It wasn’t really different from just hanging around with Scott, having a good time. But Stiles wasn’t a werewolf, nor was he immune, and he didn’t understand the supernatural first-hand like they did. There weren’t many ways he could contribute to the pack officially, at least no way that was unique or irreplaceable. Which wasn’t to say he thought he was useless, or that the pack didn’t care about him, he knew they did; but it wasn’t until that night he spent with Derek that he really felt like he had a solid place there despite being a human.

 

He felt a little bit strange at the next pack meeting, in a good way. He didn't feel like he was just a human tag-along. It felt like he and Derek had some connection of their own, or a secret or something, even though it was just watching half of some dreadful B-movie about a cyborg together and bitching about Scott when he was drunk. It didn’t make any sense, Stiles knew it didn’t. Still, when Scott asked how his night had been, Stiles found himself feeling weirdly defensive and cagey.

 

“It was fine,” Stiles just said, fucking around with the radio dials as they drove to the movie theater. “Until you got sick in the car.”

 

“What?” Scott’s mouth dropped open. “I did not!”

 

“Dude, you so did. Most of it went out the window but I still had to hose the outside down.”

 

Scott groaned, dropping his head on to the console. “No, you totally would have left it for me to clean up! Stop fucking with me, Stiles!”

 

“You’re right,” Stiles said airily, pulling into the parking lot. “I totally would have. If I didn’t know that your mom needed her car back to drive to work. And dude, I am not about to make your mom drive to the hospital inhaling puke fumes like that.”

 

“Ugh, sick!” Scott just laughed, but the important thing was that he bought Stiles a full pound of sour gummy worms for the movie. “We cool?”

 

“We’re cool,” Stiles said, dangling one into his mouth. “You’re like, the only dude who understands me.”

 

Scott grinned at him, then turned away to watch the previews. Stiles tried to do the same, but he just wasn’t as focused as he usually was. For some reason his brain insisted on reminding him of Derek, not Scott; the couch in the apartment, not the theater seats; and that old B-movie Derek had put on instead.


	3. Chapter 3

Health class was supposed to be a graduation requirement, but Stiles got his dad to write him a note that would excuse him from taking it. All he had to do was take a short test and then complete a project on his own time that showed the administration he knew drugs could kill you. It was one of the times he was really, really thankful his father was in Law Enforcement.  
  
  
He only asked Scott about the class once, and even from the vague, halting description he got in return, he knew it would be a special kind of hell.  
  
  
"We talk about, like, health. Obviously," Scott started. "I mean, we talked about proper diet and nutrition yesterday. They're also teaching us about exercise and after this unit we're supposed to learn about how alcoholism is bad --"  
  
  
Stiles narrowed his eyes. "And the sex part?"  
  
  
"Uh." Scott combed his fingers through the hair that fell over his eyes. "We already covered that. Like, about abusive relationships and we shouldn't rush anything. Like, they gave us pencils and stuff, look." Scott fished around in the front pocket of his backpack. When he sat back up, he held a circular blue pin between his fingers. It had a big red heart on it, surrounded with the words ' _I'M WORTH WAITING FOR_ ' in white.  
  
  
"Totally," Stiles said, side-eyeing the pin. "So you already talked about the, uh, physical side of things, right? Reproduction and all that?"  
  
  
Scott looked immensely uncomfortable. "Yeah. Now I know how twins are made. And did you know that when girls get cramps on their period it's because their uterus is trying to kill itself?"  
  
  
"So how 'bout -- wait, what? Literally?"  
  
  
"Yeah, dude."  
  
  
 _Oh god._  "I... okay, that is kind of interesting," Stiles admitted. "But look, man, I'm trying to ask. Did they talk about, like." He fluttered a hand vaguely around himself. "You know."  
  
  
Scott fiddled with the pin in his hands. "A little bit," he hedged. "There were diagrams in the textbook. And some statistics. Like how only one to two percent of males are carriers... you know." Stiles did know. He had memorized that figure ages ago, although technically it was only an estimation. Some men didn't know they were carriers because they didn't have access to the medical exams that told you for sure. Even those who did know often hid it from everyone else, for obvious reasons. It was impossible to get any exact numbers.  
  
  
Still, it was close enough. Stiles nodded and waved a hand, encouraging Scott to go on.  
  
  
"And -- anyway, yeah. Um, people said some stupid stuff. The teacher didn't really talk about it. But when we talked about protection, they brought it up again. Apparently there's contraceptives. And... that's pretty much it."  
  
  
"I bet Sontag and Rossi and everyone else were total dicks about it. Weren't they?" Scott didn't say anything, but his face screwed up a little bit as though he wanted to spare him all of the pain. Ugh, that was just like them. Stiles probably didn’t even have to bother asking in the first place. "What about Jackson?"  
  
  
"I think he might have tried once,” said Scott. “But I think Danny hit him or something. Didn't you see how he was totally favoring his left that one day?"  
  
  
Stiles thought about it, and yeah, he kind of had. It was funny the things you had the luxury to notice when you were on the bench. And damn, Danny must have hit Jackson pretty hard if it was still bothering him as a werewolf. The thought made him grin. "Good for Danny. I guess I'm still pretty glad I missed that class, though."  
  
  
"Yeah." Scott sighed. He looked back down at his Chemistry book, the picture of abject misery. Stiles could relate; so far Harris was being extra brutal this year. "Me, too."

 

*

 

The pack had their first all-day meeting of the year on Saturday -  plus another one that went on for half the night, after Lydia used some expertly placed hints to boot out Isaac so they could plan his birthday party. Isaac turned eighteen on the twenty-second, and this would be his first birthday without any family at all. He had a significantly more fucked-up home situation now that the state of California was trying to decide whether they wanted to place him with a temporary foster family or just emancipate him; needless to say, the pack really wanted to go all out so he could get his mind off of all that crap.

Unfortunately for Stiles, somewhere in all the arguing over whether Isaac preferred ice cream cake or cupcakes with ice cream on them, he had completely forgotten he had a set of math problems due Monday. Now it was Sunday, and what was supposed to be a lazy afternoon watching Netflix was taking a turn for the lame.

It was still early in the year, but Stiles had already accumulated a lot of crap in his school bag. He dug through it now, cursing to himself. He couldn't find his stupid cheapo compass and he was running fresh out of patience. He finally gave in and wrenched his bag upside down, shaking out everything onto his bed: notebooks, textbooks, calculator, a granola bar, now smooshed; everything down to the last stray Adderall pill. Stiles spread everything out into piles as it fell, but his compass was still MIA - god damn it, he didn't want to have to run to the store for another one – but something interesting tumbled out of the front pocket where he usually kept his keys. He picked it up; it was black and white plastic, about the size of a pack of gum.

“A jump drive?” That was weird. He had one in his room, but it was blue. He was positive he hadn’t, like, bought a new one and then forgotten about it, or anything. Maybe it had somehow gotten into his bag on accident?

He turned it over in his hand. There was a bit of masking tape wrapped around the cap and cover, and someone – no, definitely Derek, Stiles recognized that cramped handwriting, all caps – had written on it in sharpie.

**WEREWOLF LORE IN GENERAL**

Stiles just stared at it for a moment, totally lost, until his memory clicked into place. He laughed, hardly able to believe it. Derek seriously paid that much attention to the crap that spilled out of his mouth? Stiles had kind of assumed Derek had suppressed that entire night in his mind, so Scott’s wolfsbane-spiked whiskey breath and the cyborg movie didn’t leave him with any more lasting trauma.

He twisted off the cap and pounced on his computer, popping the drive in so he could start digging through the files. He didn’t really have time to go through all of it now, although he would have to, at some point. The files weren’t even organized. Still, he couldn’t help but click on a few things at random, just to get a taste of what he had. These were obviously the digitized copies Peter had made of the Hale family’s records and books. Derek had apparently sent him everything – 

 - Holy shit.

Derek had sent him  _everything_.

There were pages scanned in from books, a couple of ledgers, and there were also a few photos, mostly of people that Stiles didn’t recognize but who resembled Derek and Peter if you looked. There were even a couple of letters – old-school, handwritten letters, envelopes and all, and a copy of an electric bill for the Hale house from 1999.

Jesus.

Stiles quickly changed the display options on his browser window so that it just showed the file names, no thumbnails. Seeing miniaturized versions of the photographs and scans just made it seem one hundred times more wrong. He already felt weird enough staring at documents called things like ‘fin_doc98_1q.pdf’ and knowing that it was one of the last traces of a family, nearly all murdered.

Stiles snatched his hand off the mouse. He scanned over the list one more time, carefully. God, what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t bring himself to click on anything else, which meant he couldn’t organize it into what was safe to look at and what wasn’t. Not without actually sifting through everything. This had already been like an emotionally destructive game of Russian Roulette, and there were definitely some bullets still hiding in here.

_I shouldn’t be looking at any of it_ , Stiles decided. Moving slow and cautious, he closed out of everything and ejected the drive. He stared at it for a while, not really seeing it, just feeling raw and exposed despite himself. He - he had just done something horribly invasive.  This was… like a window into Peter and Derek’s family, into their lives, as they had been. When you considered how they had lost everything, it was hard to picture how precious this was. How intimate.

_Oh, god. Did Derek give anyone else in the pack a copy of this? What if he copied it by accident -- does Derek even know what’s on here... ?_

Stiles felt sick at the thought, stomach twisting. Derek was such a private person. Stiles was all in favor of him learning to share more of his thoughts and experiences with the pack, but not... nothing like this. Not anything like this. Not what would hurt to share; not grief.

Stiles had kept a lot of things close to his chest after his Mom passed away, not even sharing much of it with his Dad. Nobody even knew about his panic attacks, until he decided to tell Scott a couple of years ago. But that was the whole point: Stiles always made the conscious decision to share it. It wasn’t the sort of thing people could just pry in to.

Stiles chewed on his lip, focusing back in on the drive. He almost wished he hadn’t seen any of it, but... what if he was just jumping to conclusions? He didn't know for sure that Derek had given this to him by mistake. Maybe he really  _had_  decided he wanted Stiles to see it.

He supposed it was possible. Derek must have slipped the drive in his bag yesterday at the pack meeting. Maybe he even put it in the front pocket because he knew there was a good chance Stiles would find it feeling around for his keys. Derek had obviously meant to give this to Stiles in particular - the cute little title was proof enough of that. And Stiles really couldn't imagine Derek ever being so careless with his family's mementos, digital copies or not, that he would just share them with people on accident.

_So if he does know_ , Stiles thought, running his thumb over the masking tape,  _does that mean Derek actually trusts me with this?_

He had no idea.

He should bring it up with Derek. He could just find out whether or not this was a mistake on Derek's part, or if it was... something else. Technically, that was the right thing to do - but somehow, the more Stiles tried to picture that conversation, it just didn't feel like the  _tactful_  thing to do.

Especially if Derek really had given him that stuff on accident. God, how would he feel, knowing Stiles had seen some of it? Whether it was a few documents or the whole thing didn't really make that much of a difference, in the end; Derek would still feel violated. Stiles just felt like... he needed to protect this, and Derek, by extension. That was probably a selfish thought, in all honesty, but...

In the end, Stiles got out the lockbox he kept under his bed and put the jump drive in there.  _It’ll be safe now, at least_ , he reasoned, covering it up with the shitty drawing of Batman Scott had drawn him in third grade, and a photo of a kindergarten-age Stiles at the playground with both of his parents.  _And out of sight, out of mind, right?_

Safe, hopefully. Out of sight, yes. Out of mind?

Yeah, he probably should have known better.

*

“Hey, so, Stiles,” Scott said, pulling off his shoulder pads. “Can I come over?”

“Today?” Stiles glanced over at Scott, who nodded, looking a little unsure. “You can if you want,” Stiles told him, tugging his flannel snap-up back on over his t-shirt. “But I thought you were going to hang out with Isaac.”

“Not today.” Scott darted a couple looks over his shoulder as though making sure Isaac wasn’t literally eavesdropping on them at this very moment. “I think he's starting to get suspicious about the  _you-know-what_.” He gave Stiles a weak smile.

Stiles grinned, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “So you’re canceling on him out of the blue? Dude. I  _guarantee_  you, all you accomplished with that was making him even more suspicious.”

“That’s not - “ Scott shoved up closer to Stiles, bumping their elbows together. “Look, I kinda already told him I was going to your place. I really did wanna ask you something. Just... promise you won’t tell Derek?”

Stiles floundered for a second, nearly dropping his backpack. He looked over at Scott, feeling his eyebrows scrunch in a way that probably made him look more demented than anything, but whatever. “Why would I tell  _Derek_? I mean, why would  _I_  tell Derek? I mean - ”

“I don’t know! That’s not the point, I just don’t want him to think... look, this is kind of really embarrassing, okay?”

Stiles' confusion ratcheted straight up into ‘suspicion’ territory. He narrowed his eyes, leaning backwards. “Are we talking, like, chains falling out of your locker embarrassing, or... ? I swear to God Scott, if you’re about to mention Allison in any R-rated context - ”

Scott slammed his head into the front of his locker, effectively cutting off the rest of what Stiles was going to say. Stiles rated the clang as a straight ten-pointer: impressive, even taking Scott's thick werewolf skull into account. "I just wanted you to tutor me," Scott said miserably, hiding his face. "Holy  _shit_ , Stiles."

Stiles’ mouth dropped open. “Tutor you? In what?” It wasn’t like Scott was stupid. Now that he had gotten used to growing fur and fangs once a month, he did fine in class. He was already back at his B-plus average or whatever the hell it was, as far as Stiles knew.

Scott shrugged. “For college. You know. My GPA is still low from Sophomore year, so I need to bust my ass this semester to bring it up before applications are due.” He clenched his jaw, looking away. “Getting bitten already fucked up enough things for me. I don’t want it to screw up college, too. I mean, I’ve been studying, but dude. I still can’t remember our Spanish vocab without those stupid songs you always make.”

_College_ , Stiles thought slowly, anxiety wrapping around his heart like a constrictor.  _Right. Yeah. Totally, I have... totally not forgotten about that. Not at all._  “Where, uh, where were you planning on going?”

Scott looked at him as though he were crazy. “Wherever you go,” he said immediately. “We’re still going together, aren’t we? I’m gonna apply to wherever you do, but that means I’m probably gonna have to ace everything now to get in.”

Stiles laughed a little, trying to cover up his sudden unease. “Well, don’t worry, man, the songs aren’t hard to come up with. It’s not like that alphabet song was about to win any awards, you know what I mean?”

Danny and Jackson left through the locker room doors, looking way too fucking cool for lesser mortals as they went off to do God-knew-what. Isaac had probably left already, in that beat-up Toyota he’d gotten a few months ago. Stiles suddenly wanted to know where they - where everyone, the whole pack - was planning to go. Had they seriously not talked about this? This seemed like a glaring oversight on Derek’s part.

Oh, fuck. He was so screwed. Not that his grades weren’t good - he’d even done well on the SAT and everything - but where the hell was he even going to apply to, anyway?

He and Scott both had a lot of misgivings about leaving their single parents to fend for themselves, and tuition was expensive enough as it was, so they had always planned on going somewhere in-state together. Stiles had pictured himself in San Francisco, maybe LA. Some bigger city that was within a day’s driving distance, but where he could melt into the crowd. College would be the start of his real life. He would be able to come clean about being a carrier. He could date people, live without having to worry about getting harassed - well, not any more than any other minority did these days. Adults were supposed to be more mature than high schoolers, less cruel, and the cities were even more liberal than even Beacon Hills.

There had been nothing wrong with this plan when he only had to worry about himself and Scott.  _But now Scott and I had to get ourselves into a werewolf pack_ , Stiles thought dazedly, as the two of them made the trek out to the Jeep.  _Now how the hell is this all supposed to go? I bet the pack is going to want to stick together. How the hell am I going to make that work?_  He couldn’t live as a carrier openly while still keeping it a secret from almost his entire group of friends. He could tell them, maybe, but who knew how they would react? And if word traveled back to Beacon Hills, Stiles would be better off never showing his face here again. He didn’t even want to  _think_  about what would happen to his Dad.

On the other hand, he didn’t want to cut the pack out of his life. Or Allison - Scott would rather cut his own hand off with a bone saw than leave her behind, and Stiles didn’t wish that on him, either.

_It’s only a few weeks into September_ , Stiles told himself as he started up the ignition.  _It’s not like I have do decide anything now. Just... soon._  Yeah, cold comfort, but right now he didn’t have anything better.

_Shit. Things would have been so much less complicated if I just... hadn’t turned out like this._

  
*

It was half past two on a Sunday afternoon when Lydia called. Stiles couldn't think of a single time she ever had, before - if pressed, he would have said she didn't even have his number, despite the number of times they had hung out with the rest of the pack over the summer. They talked when they saw each other, but they hadn't exactly reached the ' _calling just to say hi_!' level yet, so Stiles thought he could be forgiven for his mind going to dark and bloody places.

"Lydia? What's wrong?" He couldn't hear anything over the line - no screaming, no snarls, not even heavy creeper breathing. He squeezed the phone between his shoulder and his cheek so he could stick his hands underneath the running tap in the kitchen. Damn, he always picked the worst times to cook food, seriously. "Is there a rogue omega?" he asked, dropping his voice lower. "Did Peter finally snap?"

  
"No," she finally said. Her tone of voice didn't sound at all reassuring. "It's worse."

Stiles' mind flashed to Peter, mauling Lydia the night of the winter formal; math class, the ice rink, and every other time she had a mental breakdown; Lydia crying in her car outside of the school, Lydia so drugged up to deal with the trauma of seeing Peter's Alpha form that she didn't even tell Stiles to get the hell out of her house... How bad were things now that she was actually asking Stiles for help? The only time she had stooped this low was when she was concerned about Jackson, not herself.

  
"I'm leaving right now, okay?" Stiles snatched his keys from the counter and made for the door, casting a wary look at the stairs as he went. His Dad was home, but God willing, he couldn't hear any of this conversation. If he asked about it, Stiles would have to lie; and not only was he sick of lying, he wasn't getting any better at coming up with them. "Where are you?"

  
"Derek's." Apparently, Lydia still refused to mention Peter by name. "You might want to bring something heavy enough to do damage to a werewolf skull."

  
Stiles paused from where he had been stuffing his toes into the front half of his sneakers, socks be damned. "What?" He hissed. 

  
"No guns - "

  
" _What_?"

  
" - Just get here, Stiles." She hung up.

  
Stiles made it to Derek's in five minutes, which was a personal record - Beacon Hills was small, but not that small - and leapt out of his car, ready to fight off a whole pack of God only knew what. He hadn't known what to expect, but he... well, he had expected carnage, or a struggle, or at least some suspicious strangers lurking around the street wearing sunglasses and holding newspapers tucked underneath their arms. Instead, the only company he had in the nearly empty parking lot was Derek's Camaro, parked in its management-designated space; and Lydia, perched on the hood of her own car with a nail file.

"Took you long enough," she said brightly, aiming a smile at him without actually looking up. "I was starting to think I should have screamed."

"Lydia, what - " Stiles frowned at her, and turned in a slow circle, just to make sure he really wasn't losing it. "What the hell? Is this some kind of fucked up joke?"

She pursed her lips. "I wish. We do have a situation on our hands, unfortunately." She tilted her head, gesturing at the building behind her and simultaneously tossing her wavy hair back over her shoulder. "Namely, that our brave, dark and handsome Alpha is a moron."

"Wh - "

" - I heard something interesting from Allison. I don’t suppose either Scott or Derek mentioned anything to you?" 

"Yeah, uh, no. Not exactly." Stiles slid his phone out of his pocket, checking his screen for good measure. Nope, no messages. "Why? Should they have?" 

Lydia smiled at him. Stiles was biased towards finding all of her smiles sweet and beautiful, but this one made his stomach churn. "Just like I thought. Well, let's just say that our respective best friends have been busy lately. Apparently Romeo and Juliet have talked their houses into working out an agreement in the name of their star-crossed love."

Stiles held up a hand. "Uh, wait. You were talking about Allison and Scott in love, right?" He was pretty sure he was following what Lydia was talking about, but the thought of Chris Argent with Derek Hale was so mind-bendingly -- just,  _what_  -- Stiles' whole brain skittered to a halt. Luckily for him, Lydia put him out of his misery as soon as he asked. She simply shot him the same look she usually gave teachers, faculty and other assorted authority figures who displayed their ignorance in front of her.

"To continue," she said pointedly, "Derek thought he was going to meet up with Mr. Argent here.  _Alone_."

 

It took Stiles all of two seconds to put everything together. Of course Argent would tell Derek that he wanted to meet him all by himself - that is, vulnerable. He would be an idiot not to take advantage of it. Stiles could picture what would happen, clear as day. Black, oily blood would creep down Derek’s face, sluggish, from the bullet wound on his forehead. His skin would be gray and clammy. After a brief attempt to fight against the inevitable, he would crumple down to the floor, eyes dead a few seconds before the rest of him...

 

Stiles shuddered, and shook his head to try shoving the horrifying picture away. That urgency he’d felt when he thought Lydia was in danger surged up again. He sprinted for the stairs, praying that they weren’t already too late, and that Derek wasn’t bleeding out on his bathroom floor - God, what would they do?  _What would I say to the rest of the pack?_

 

Lydia trailed after him, keeping in step perfectly even though she was in heels. She had probably expected Stiles to do this exact thing - but that wasn’t much of a leap. How was anyone supposed to just stand back and let Derek get murdered by a hunter?

 

Stiles had planned to kick over that stupid welcome mat and snatch up the key or even break the door down, if he had to. But by the time he made it to the right landing, Derek was already leaning out of the apartment door, eyebrows furrowed, like he had no idea what Lydia or Stiles could possibly be thinking by showing up at his place. An overwhelming wave of sheer relief swept through Stiles as he realized that Derek was still alive and apparently unharmed, but it was short-lived, quickly giving way to fury.  _How could Derek possibly be this careless?_

Stiles hadn’t seen any other cars in the parking lot besides Derek’s, Lydia’s, and his Jeep. That meant Argent probably wasn't here yet.  _Probably_. Which meant Stiles couldn't really be sure. He shoved past Derek into the apartment, distantly impressed with himself when Derek didn't even tried to stop him, and did a cursory check of all the rooms. He even looked over the two bedrooms, making sure it really was empty. On the one hand, it meant that Argent hadn’t arrived yet, so Stiles and Lydia had intervened in time. On the other hand...

"You fucking idiot," Stiles breathed. He whirled around to find himself practically face-to-face with Derek in the short hallway that led off from the living room. "Not even Peter's here? Are you insane? What the Hell were you  _thinking_?"

Derek's eyes were slightly narrowed, but he didn't look aggressive; just... confused, maybe. Totally non-plussed. "This really isn't a good time, Stiles, what are you doing here?"

"Me?" Stiles poked Derek in the chest. "Look, you - " he was so astounded, he nearly tripped over his words. "I'm not the one who decided to meet with a fucking hunter, in his apartment, completely alone."

Derek let out a long breath through his nose. He turned away, walking back towards the front end of the apartment.  _If he thinks I'm going to leave, he's got another thing coming,_  Stiles thought, keeping pace behind him. “Hey, asshole, I want to know where the fuck you get off trying to do something this stupid!”

 

Derek went into the kitchen, apparently intent on ignoring Stiles. He pulled a can of beer out of the fridge and popped the top, draining the entire thing in one go. He crumpled the can easily in one hand, and tossed it into the garbage can tucked neatly away near the counter. Stiles fisted his hands, ready to yell or grab Derek by the collar and shake him, but Lydia stepped into the kitchen, her heels clicking on the tile. She shared a look with Stiles, and used a napkin from her purse to pick up the crumpled can and move it to the recycling. “You’re not going to get rid of Stiles that easily,” she said tartly. “You can spend years ignoring his existence, he only takes it as encouragement.”

 

Derek finally turned around to face them both, running a careless hand through his hair. For the first time, Stiles realized that Derek had put more effort than usual into looking nice - he was miles away from the casual sweatpants and t-shirt he had worn when Stiles had come over on homecoming night, or the bloody denim and ripped leather he usually wore when they ended up dealing with werewolf business. He looked like any twenty-something professional you’d pass on a city street downtown. “Look,” he said, “Argent and I are trying to work out an agreement. We have to show each other some gestures of good faith. Make some sacrifices.” He rolled his shoulders. “Argent agreed to meet here on our territory, without any weapons. I agreed to meet them alone, without any other werewolves who could give them trouble.”

 

“‘ _Them_ ,’” Stiles repeated. “Allison is coming too?” His anger wasn’t making him trip over his words or thoughts anymore. It had sunk down into a sort of dense, pulsating rage, pushing his heart to pound faster and sharpening everything until he felt completely on point. “And no part of you ever thought, ‘hey, maybe this is a bad idea? Sure, let’s invite a skilled hunter and his daughter, who nearly murdered three members of my pack, by the way, into my house for some coffee?’” Lydia threw him a sharp glance, and even Derek looked reproachful, but he shook it off. “I’m not saying that Allison  _would_  do anything to you, but she  _could_. Let alone her Dad - ”

 

“Yeah, and I  _could_  claw both of their throats out before they could even scream,” Derek shot back. “The whole point of meeting like this is to prove that we can trust each other. I’m not going to go out of my way to make them feel uncomfortable by having more wolves here.”

 

“No, you’re going out of your way to be  _dangerous_ and  _stupid._ ” Stiles stepped closer. “There was literally no reason you couldn’t invite me or Lydia to be here with you, unless you just wanted to make yourself a better target!”

 

Derek folded his arms, and leaned away, even though Stiles had him pretty well hemmed in against the counter. One corner of his mouth twitched, almost like he found something funny about all of this - and Stiles had a lot more to say to him, if he did - and he rolled his eyes. “If I remember right, you had no problem leaving me to die before.” Derek said.  “Or throwing me to the cops.”

 

Stiles sucked in a breath. It caught, painfully. His chest twisted up, like someone had shoved a fist into his body and mixed his heart and ribs and lungs around and out of place. “Fuck you, Derek.” He wrenched back, aiming a punch somewhere between Derek’s chest and shoulder, and to his distant surprise, Derek actually let it land. “Just,  _Fuck. You_.” 

 

“Stiles -”

 

“No.” There wasn’t enough air in the room. Stiles’ eyes stung, but he didn’t have time to deal with it. “You said we were pack. You  _said._ ”

 

Derek’s whole body stiffened up, like he had spotted a raptor circling overhead and was afraid to make a wrong move. He reached out, seeming hesitant at first, but firmly took hold of Stiles’ upper arms. “We are,” he said. “I just wanted to keep you out of the line of fire, if --" he broke off, heaving a frustrated sigh. "We  _are._ I wouldn’t lie about that.”

 

The steady, solid foundation of anger that had been keeping Stiles’ feet under him suddenly crumbled. He felt like he was falling again, with nothing to catch him, trying to grab hold of whatever was in reach and just feeling it all slip through his fingers. He hated this feeling, hated it, and he didn’t know what else he could do except try to ignore how awful it felt. “Then you can’t do shit like this, okay?” Inexplicably, he thought of his Dad. He had come to terms with the potentially lethal nature of his Dad’s job, because not even Stiles could justify keeping his Dad safe at home when the whole county depended on him. This felt different. His dad had training, state funding,  _back-up._ He didn’t take any more risks than he had to. Derek only had their motley pack, but they would all be equally lost without him. “You have people who give a fuck about what happens to you. You think you’re being all self-sacrificing or whatever, trying to keep the rest of us safe, but it’s - you’re just being selfish.”

 

Derek twitched, and looked to the floor. His hands flexed around Stiles’ arms. “I’m the strongest, physically. I can heal faster. I’m not going to let you get hurt. Any of you.”

 

“Oh, fuck that.” Stiles shrugged out of Derek’s hold, and took a few steps backwards, trying to gather himself. “Don’t trust them with your life if you aren’t going to trust them with ours. You’re making an agreement for the whole pack, anyway. Not just you.” He turned to look at Lydia, belatedly realizing he hadn’t thanked her yet for calling him over. If she hadn’t, he would have had no idea any of this was going down - and if anyone ever told him about it, it would have been far after the fact. “So, Lydia and I are both staying. We can work this out together.”

 

Derek opened up his mouth to reply, but the doorbell cut him off, ringing through the house. “Two guesses who just showed up,” Lydia said, sailing out of the kitchen towards the door. “Close your mouth, Derek, and pour some drinks. Stiles, make sure everything’s cleared off the couch.”

 

Derek shut his mouth, aiming a gloomy frown at the space Lydia had just been standing in, but not even he was stupid enough to delay fulfilling one of her orders. Stiles watched Derek for a moment, just to make sure he really wasn’t going to try and throw them out of the house before negotiations could get underway, but... well, hopefully something either he or Lydia had said had gotten through.

 

He went into the living room, swept his sweaty palms over the couch cushions to make sure there wasn’t even a stray piece of lint in the way, and took a deep breath.

This was going to be okay. It had to go okay, and they would make sure it went off without any problems. That’s what a pack did for each other, and Stiles would be damned if he wasn't going to be a part of this.

**Author's Note:**

> This fill deals with some themes of homophobia, sexism, discrimination, etc. including hurtful language/actions (but no sexual or physical violence). There's not really a real-world equivalent to a 'carrier' but there are parallels with other groups, so consider this a general warning for prejudice.
> 
> I'm not an expert on handling this kind of thing sensitively, but I try not to be an asshole. So if you think I've tagged inappropriately or just made a dick move, feel free to tell me about it!


End file.
